If You Love Me, Stay
by Iridescent.Flames
Summary: "Gray-sama once sacrificed his life for Juvia's," Gray's knees hit the ground with a sick squelch and warm blood soaked through his ruined pants. It felt like he was taking it away from her, leaching her blood into his body.
1. Water and sinew

His eyelids felt like they were stitched open or as if someone had stuck glue under his eyelashes. They say that when something terrible happens, time slows down and all the background noise gets lost. Well, they're right. He stared as the fabric was torn into smaller pieces and watched every singular strand of hair flutter forward as if they were reaching out to him, trembling, blue arms trying to grasp him. Gray saw the hole expand through organs, muscles, bones, and skin and the fat droplets of blood as they sprayed across his face and chest, watched it as it dribbled from cracked, dry lips, and leak into a growing puddle at scuffed, booted feet.

Everything was too quiet and too loud all at the same time. There was screaming, somewhere. Gray couldn't figure out from where, his eyes stayed stubbornly transfixed on the strokes of red and clear blue trailing across pale, bruised skin. The lips moved, forming words, but he was too fixated on how the teeth should be white to listen to the words. Listening though was pointless; he knew what she was saying. Grey had watched those lips form those exact words more than a hundred times before, but never before had he watched a wave of red engulf the vowels and surround the consonants.

"Gray…-sama…,"

She stuttered through it, air wheezing and bubbling out of her throat but for some horrible, terrible reason she was smiling at him. Gray couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. His skin burned where her blood was painted on, but he couldn't wipe it away. He tried to speak, tried to reach out but everything had shut down as he watched the fog roll into her eyes. Someone was still screaming and all Gray could think was _that should be me_.

She fell to her knees and her hands fluttered uselessly around the wound in her abdomen. He saw the skin around the hole flash between water and flesh before finally sputtering to a stop at destroyed flesh. Gray finally blinked.

"Ju…via?"

Juvia's hands dropped to her sides, bloody knuckles dragging across the dirt and leaving streaks of gore on the ground. The small thump of her knuckles hitting the ground forced Gray a step back, but she didn't seem to notice. Her smile grew a little wider, the blood following the curve of her lips and filling in the tiny spaces between her teeth. She was coughing now as the fog floated from her eyes. Behind the fog, her pupils were blown wide, consuming the blue irises.

"Gray-sama once sacrificed his life for Juvia's,"

Gray's knees hit the ground with a sick _squelch_ and warm blood soaked through his ruined pants. It felt like he was taking it away from her, leaching her blood into his body. Her hot finger tips grazed against his cheek and jaw, drawing shaky swirls in the grime.

"Please, don't Gray-sama," She mumbled as one hand fell away from his cheek, shining with small splatters of water. It should have been from her, it was always from her, but her water couldn't save her this time. They were too slow, too distracted, too weak. Her hand dropped into his lap the same time her forehead fell onto his shoulder. Her hair was in the awkward halfway conversion to water that it sometimes got when she was nervous or excited. It tumbled over her trembling shoulders to soak his chest and curl around his neck like serpents, slowly suffocating him. Warm breathe scraped across his bare skin like a promise.

"I…love you…Gray-," The hand on his jaw plummeted to his leg and her shoulders slumped forward and suddenly the serpents disguised as tresses were choking him and the weight of her body on his chest felt immeasurable. His vision went grey.

And then it exploded in blue.

Cover art by and story based off of the beautiful art found here: post/90131233641/gray-sama-juvia-is-here-i-have-a-feeling


	2. You'll be fine

"Dammit Gray, let us in!"

Gajeel's fists throbbed from pounding against the unrelenting ice. He could see the vague shapes of Gray and Juvia on their knees, slumped against each other. Neither of them were moving, but Gajeel had seen the crystal impale his best friend, she needed healing. She needed healing now!

His thoughts propelled his assault on the jagged ice wall, but for every piece he manage to chip off another, larger spike grew in its place. Ice was slowly crawling across the floors and up the walls, engulfing the entire room in a bitter cold.

"Gray, it's Wendy! Please let me help Juvia!"

More spikes continued to sprout from the fortress, causing the Fairy Tail member to take a stuttering step backwards.

"Where the hell is Natsu?"

"I don't know!"

"Someone find him so he can melt this shit!"

* * *

"Juvia?" Her head was heavy on his shoulder, weighing on his collarbone and making it ache. Gray's eyes looked stubbornly at the ceiling, ignoring the warm, growing pool around his knees and the strands of hair that were sticking to his tear stained face.

"You're water, right? You'll be fine, just need some time, yeah?" The warmth underneath him was gone now, replaced with a cold familiarity.

"Juvia, hurry up and close it already! This isn't funny!" Gray's voice grew in volume. His hands gripped her shoulders and eyes snapped down to meet hers, only to see the fog returning his glare. He startled, hands falling to his sides as he gave a wet exhale.

"Please, no. Please not you too," His shaking hands grasped hers, the blood squelching when he threaded their fingers.

"Come on Juvia, take my magic. Please, just take it. It's just like our Unison Raid! Take it and use it to heal yourself!" Gray was screaming at the end, begging her over and over to heal herself, but nothing changed in her unresponsive form.

_Everyone around me is cursed. Dad. Ultear. Ur. Mom._

_ I told you to stay away, Juvia. I told you!_

Gray was sobbing and his arm throbbed. The crystal that was still embedded in her torso bit into his hip as he clutched at her hands and buried his brow in her shoulder.


End file.
